Bright Mountain Bike Festival

Bright MTB Festival - one of the biggest events of the year! With a huge amount of disciplines there was something for everyone. — Bright MTB Festival – one of the biggest events of the year! With a huge amount of disciplines there was something for everyone.

The second round of the Alpine Gravity Enduro Series saw us arriving in the picturesque Bright, not only for the enduro, but for the Bright MTB Festival. This saw a slopestyle event, cross country, downhill and enduro races all held over the course of the weekend!

Steep and loose, just what riders wanted and living up to the reputation that Bright has for being one of the premier race destinations in Australia.

For the enduro the weather was on our side with warm sunshine beaming down. On initial inspection the track lived up to its reputation from last year and from the start gate it was steep and loose with plenty of fun turns. After a few riders the track started to get loose and the dust started to fly! Riders were flowing down the track with smiles from ear to ear on everything from 29er hardtails to full-fledged DH bikes. When one bike was shining the other would lose out and the track became equally fair to everyone.

Caption options A) Bulldozing down the track! B) The grade was awesome! C) Everyone brought out their best machinery for the weekend. There you go pick your story!

The sun was out and shining, well for most of the weekend anyway!

As the first run rolled around there were so many riders the times fell slightly behind, but everything continued to keep up and run smoothly. As rider after rider pounded the corners the looseness escalated quickly, with many being caught out by dust piles looking like berms, and front wheel washing out.

Front wheel washouts and flat outs wiped the smile off the faces of many riders but only temporarily of course!

Rider after rider hit the track churning it up but that's pretty standard and you get use to that with the Australian climate and soil conditions! — Rider after rider hit the track churning it up but that’s pretty standard and you get use to that with the Australian climate and soil conditions!

Check out the crowd and the stoke clearly evident on Lucy Crundwell's face! Doesn't it make you smile?! — Check out the crowd and the stoke clearly evident on Lucy Crundwell’s face! Doesn’t it make you smile?!

Staying with the Crundwell clan but this time Ben pinning it and duly rewarded with 5th for his efforts!

The second runs began seamlessly and riders again flowed down the track but soon the clouds rolled in. By the time Elite Women were racing there was a sizable thunderstorm making its way over the race, many women finishing claimed to be hailed on either at the top of the track or mid-way down! As the storm escalated and the lightning grew closer and closer, the decision was made to cancel the Elite Mena��s second run due to dangers with the lightning and storms. This meant a hectic mass downhill start for all the boys resulting in plenty of fun being had down the track, it did however mean the first runs standings were the final results. Chris Panozzo took the victory with a healthy margin of overA�9 seconds in what was a pretty stacked field.A�What times riders would have done in their second run we will never know but we still got a result and fun was had, which is the main thing!

Elite Women:

1. Carrie McLachlan 8.30.22

2. Genevieve McKewA�8.34.10

3. Ronja Hill-Wright 8.38.36

4. Jpo Wall 8.44.25

5. Alyssa Lyons 8.52.44

Elite Men:

1. Chris Panozzo A�6.55.52

2. Jack Tattersall 7.04.58

3, Kaine Cannan 7.05.58

4. Jon Odams 7.08.09

5. Ben Crundwell 7.10.73

Watch that pedal! The fine line between an awesome run and telling all your mates in the car park 'if only I had/hadn't...' — Watch that pedal! The fine line between an awesome run and telling all your mates in the car park ‘if only I had/hadn’t…’

Bright MTB Festival done and dusted for another year, we will be back next year! Before then though we will be back to Bright over summer for some more racing!

Report & images: Jason Stevens Photography

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November 19, 2013

Victorian All Mountain Series – Beechworth

downhill247com Pitt1 — The final round of the Victorian Enduro Series was held in the town of Beechworth, a few hours from Melbourne. Image: Jacinta Renee

The final round of the Victorian Enduro Series was held in Beechworth over the weekend. Beechworth itself is a nice little town to spend the race weekend in, with its bakeries, breweries and if you like honey then you’re definitely in for a treat! We were here for the race though and the track was different to the last round atA�Mount Beauty, it was a fast track with more pedalling and combined with the hardpack nature of the ground it meant speeds were high. The track wasn’t overly technical but had some rock gardens with large boulders in them that kept riders on their toes.

The turnout for the race was solid but no where near as big as what we saw at Mount Beauty, as per usual the shuttles were spot on and turn around times’ good. Like Mount Buller, the race village was near the top of the track which meant plenty of encouragement for riders as they left the gate! As per the trend this season Daniel MacMunn took the Elite victory to cap off an super impressive season which he comprehensively dominated. Under 19 was taken out by Simon Harrington, full results can be found on the Alpine Gravity site.

downhill247com Pitt2 — Our man on the ground Lucas took out the win on the day in Expert and the overall Expert series for the season to boot, nice one! Image: Jacinta Renee

Interesting to note some details for the next series have already been released, at this stage it looks like there will be two race runs for each rider with only the best time counting. We will bring you more information but the next Alpine event will be their downhill series.

March 6, 2013

Victorian All Mountain Series – Mount Beauty

downhill247com beauty 18 — A big, high quality turn out of riders descended on Mount Beauty, literally, for the Victorian All Mountain Series over the weekend!

The Victorian town of Mount Beauty is some what of a Mecca for mountain bikers of all disciplines in Australia with a myriad of trails that will blow your mind. Over the weekend we headed there to take in the latest of the Victorian All Mountain Series, a series that has rapidly grown in a very short period of time.

The track was a bit different from the past few rounds, out of pine forests and back into Aussie bush, the race was held on established trails, so they were fully bedded in, by the end of the weekend their was some track wear starting to creep in. There were a few tight corners but overall it lived up to theA�reputation the area has, which is quite high with notorious tracks such as Big Hill to thank for this. People came out in force for the event with over 14o entrants for the race, organisers reacted by running more transport which meant you never had to wait too long for shuttles.

downhill247com beauty 11 — You can find all types of setups at an Enduro style race, whatever works for you!

Racing ran smoothly and in the end Daniel MacMunn kept up his winning ways taking out round 3 with Rhys Atkinson, at his first enduro race, placed second. Rhys said it is a completely different type of fitness, well a second place shows he must have some of it whatever it is!

downhill247com beauty 4 — Does enduro require the perfect balance of fitness and technical skills?!

Another important event happened over the weekend at the race, it was the raffle and auction held for Sam Brownlie, the rider who crashed at Mount Buller earlier in the year. In the end over $4000 was raised for Sam, a massive effort by everyone involved but one that shows how cool and willing to help out the greater mountain bike community is. The next race and the final for the series will be heldA�in Beechworth early March.

February 19, 2013

Victorian All Mountain Series – Myrtleford Preview

The next round of the Victorian all mountain series is happening over the 12th and 13th of January at Myrtleford, no doubt many of you will be racing itA�(or wanting to!) and we just had a chat with course builder Ben Watkins about what to expect from the event. To say Ben was pretty excited about what was in store on the ‘Breckenridge Trail’ would be an understatement!

downhill247com Myrtleford1 — “This is one of the best trails I have ever built” If you have sampled some of Ben’s other trails then you would know this is a big statement!

The new singletrack has had a lot of gone into it to help the flow, in Bens enthusiastic words; “The trail I am using for the Myrtleford Yeti Cycles Elevation round, is a trail called Breckenridge trail. Ita��s in a myriad of old hard core moto enduro loops, fouby tracks, and tech mountain bike descents, winding down the side of a huge mountain with tons of these tight sharp steep little “valleys” on the way down.

This gives the trail an amazing yet unique mix of long, flowy descending sections, which then gives you enough speed to get up the other side of a short sharp little climb. The bonus of this is that you drop a ton of vertical elevation but then you get most of that back again without a massive climbing effort, so it feels like an endless roller coaster ride.

I did a few days hiking with a high end GPS which helped me to see a�?the whole mountaina��, even though you cana��t see over the next ridge in the thick forest. This helped to pick which direction to go, which old trail to use, and which ones to let die. Picking out some of the diss-used trails and rebuilding those, along with piecing together some amazing new linking sections which have amazing terrain has given us what seems like “the perfect trail” for all mountain, super D, or gravity based enduro riding.

Even though there is a lot of old trails there from long ago, the erosion from heavy rain had destroyed a lot of it, so by the time I added new links or whole new sections, rebuilding the old trails meant that pretty much I ended up with what looks like five kays of brand new single trail. This did allow for more interesting and creative new lines, and this trail as a whole is definitely a step in the right direction from the Bright trail, and more interesting from a riders perspective too.

The elevation drop is close to 1000 vertical feet, and after the first lay out of the track it was five kays long. It has since had two un interesting sections removed, but also an amazing new section added, so it will be interesting to see the times and the actual new trail length, as Bright was 3.5 kays taking ten minutes.

A lot of riders have asked me “whata��s the track like?” as a builder I think this one is the best, and most creative Ia��ve ever built. As a rider, I cana��t wait to thrash it!”

downhill247com Myrtleford2 — Rocks, lots of rocks! Make sure you have your bike set up for the conditions.

For more info head over to the Facebook or site or hit up their website, as usual expect a full report on the site after the event!

January 8, 2013